re: "so it is presumptuous in the extreme to extrapolate that into an expression of kudos for an act of murder"
OF COURSE it is presumptuous. That's why my post was garnished with vagueries - "probablys" and "I thinks." Without being there, we have nothing else to go on but our presumption.
Does that mean we don't talk about it?
It's the deceased's daughter who spoke as if she knew what happened, not me:
"It was just goofing off in a locker room," Ribstein said, shaking her head.
I don't find it very likely that the level of anger Ericsson built up over fifty years resulted from a single occurrence of someone "goofing off." Based on my experiences as a small high schooler who had his share of run-ins with bullies, such run-ins are NEVER a single event. Bullies are like cats playing with mice, working themselves into orgasmic frenzies by tormenting smaller prey. They pounce repeatedly, dragging attacks on for as long as possible.
When I was a freshman, there was a kid who simultaneously made at least a dozen other kids' lives pure hell for the entire year. Too bad we didn't know; maybe we'd have ganged up against him. Much later, I learned he was picking on some of my friends too.... Making other kids dread their days was apparently the big thing in his life. It wasn't until I was a sophomore, angrier and somewhat larger that I finally knocked his head into a brick wall when he wasn't looking and got him off MY back. (Lesson learned: Bullies don't like kids who fight back.)
For many kids, school is the main component in their lives. Look at the number of teen suicides, or the adults who forever dwell on things that happened in high school, and you'll have evidence that it's so. It's a shame, because school is only a short period of time in our lives, but it's an IMPORTANT period.
There are far too many schoolyard bullies, and their impact on a lot of people's lives is hard to overstate. They're essentially criminals, widely condoned by society because they're young. My sympathy, when reading about the things they've done, is with their victims. To me, it sounds as if Carl Ericsson is one.
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